The present invention relates to the field of storage devices for motor vehicles, and more particularly to storage devices for trucks.
Trucks of the type with open rear bed cargo areas accessible through a rear gate door such as conventional pickup trucks are especially susceptible to unwanted intrusion. These vehicles generally have no secure storage area that will keep cargo and personal effects out of sight and secure. Articles left unattended in the truck (especially articles stored in the rear bed of the truck) are viewable by potential thieves and subject to theft and tampering. The theft of articles from these open vehicles is a major problem for owners. Moreso still, the threat of theft of articles is a major inconvenience to owners when shopping, traveling, or engaging in any other activity that involves transporting articles in the vehicle.
In the past, storage devices that create secure storage space in trucks have been devised to address the above described security problem. For the most part, these storage devices are relatively permanently installed (to prevent theft of the entire device and its contents) in the vehicle--usually by mounting the storage device to the rear bed of the truck with metal bolts or sheet metal screws which require deforming the chassis of the truck (drilling holes, etc.) and the use of tools to remove. One consequence of permanently mounting the storage device in the rear bed of the truck is to reduce the effective cargo capacity of the rear bed of the truck and thus render the truck less useful for transporting cargo. Furthermore, if the owner needs to use the rear bed of the truck at its full size, the storage device must be removed from its relatively permanent attachment to the vehicle with tools, which is a time consuming and laborious operation for the owner--not to mention the inconvenience of having to reinstall the storage device back into the truck. The owner of the truck is further inconvenienced by such storage devices since, because they are relatively permanently attached, they tend to obstruct access to the rear cargo bed making it difficult to load and unload articles stored otherwise therein. One such device is depicted in U.S. Pat. No. 5,564,776 issued to Bradley S. Schlachter. Schachter's invention must be relatively permanently attached to the truck with threaded bolts and cooperating nuts. Another such devise is U.S. Pat. No. 5,498,049 also issued to Bradley S. Schlachter. The use of this invention requires drilling holes into the chassis and is attached to the vehicle via sheet metal screws.
Other storage devices require an initial installation of externally supplied latching hardware onto the truck chassis and/or the storage device itself in order to secure the storage device to the truck, which is relatively complicated and cumbersome for the truck owner. Furthermore, when latching hardware is mounted to the truck it can degrade the aesthetics of the truck as well as impede the loading and unloading of articles in the rear bed. One such device is depicted in U.S. Pat. No. 4,249,684 issued to Kenneth Miller. Miller's invention requires mounting properly spaced rails to the vehicle using sheet metal screws or welding. Another such device is depicted in U.S. Pat. No. 5,395,019 issued to David Christensen. Christensen's invention also requires the relatively permanent installation of a latching mount to the vehicle.
Furthermore, it seems obvious that some of the above cited prior art as well as many other prior art inventions require an initial assembly of the storage device components once purchased from the manufacture which further adds to the inconvenience of the user.
There is, therefore, a need in the industry for a device that addresses the problems outlined above as well as other related and unrelated problems.